The mental trick that helped me claw way my back from debilitating anxiety

Anxiety doesn't always go away -- but your relationship with it can change.

Using defusion -- a strategy of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy -- can help you separate yourself from anxious thoughts.

Throughout my teens and the entirety of my twenties, it seemed like I was weathering one health-related disaster after another.

At fifteen, I was hospitalized with ovarian cysts -- giant, fluid-filled sacs that would spontaneously rupture and leave me vomiting and doubled over in pain within a matter of minutes.

At twenty, I underwent emergency surgery for a kidney stone obstruction while I was studying abroad in southern India. ( If you've never had the misfortune of trying to squeeze out a kidney stone over a squat toilet, consider yourself lucky).

Then, at twenty-five, my unborn son was diagnosed with a permanently paralyzing disability.

Throughout all of this, a latent anxiety disorder sprouted, and then bloomed.

But at age 29, a battery of tests revealed two new problems inside my body, and I suddenly reached the limit of what I felt like I could endure, physically and psychologically.

The first test -- a routine urinalysis - showed that my kidneys were hemorrhaging protein, a sign of potential kidney disease or diabetes.

The second test revealed a four-millimeter lump on the outer wall of my bladder -- and it was malignant.

Fortunately for me, these health issues have all been pretty resolvable: After giving up added sugar cold-turkey, I dropped fifteen pounds in two months and my kidney function improved.